Episode 241: Crane Wife
/In the past, we’ve talked about bird husbands and seal wives, but today we’re diving deep into Animal Spouses with the Japanese folk tale, the Crane Wife!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of animal endangerment/death, abusive relationships, arranged/forced marriages, illness, urination, pregnancy, childbirth, blinding, rape, sexual assault, child abandonment, sex, bestiality, and virginity.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends Leverage: Redemption.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out Join the Party: A collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast, powered by the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a party, and you’re invited! Search for Join the Party in your podcast app, or go to jointhepartypod.com.
Sponsors
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- Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com/spirits and get a free trial of Premium Membership. This week Amanda recommends “Finding Fulfillment: Using Pivots to Power Your Creative Career” by Emma Gannon.
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits podcast a boozy diamond to mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And this is Episode 241: Crane Wife and all kinds of animal spouses.
JULIA: There are! There's a bunch of animal spouses. We're not just talking about bird wives. Now we're talking about all the wives and husbands that aren't people.
AMANDA: Exactly! It is so fun and I love digging into the artwork and lore of this whole tradition. So Julia, a great episode selection thanks for bringing it in five point something years in.
JULIA: Oh, hey. Thanks!
AMANDA: Thank you as well to those patrons who keep it new and fresh for us every day when we get to wake up and there's a new patron email. And I'm like: Oh, guys, thank you! Richard, Shelby, Christopher, Greg, and Goji Berry. What a sweet name.
JULIA: Hey, thanks.
AMANDA: Thank you too to our supporting producer-level patrons who support us, sustains us, and helps us be our job. Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Bryan, Debra, Hannah, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Justin, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And Julia, don't forget it, those legend-level patrons, Audra, Chimera or Change, Clara, Drew, Jack Marie, Jaybaybay, Ki, Lada, Morgan, Morgan H., Necroroyalty, & Bea Me Up Scotty. For the record guys, did that in one take, and that means it's going to be a good week. It's gonna be a good week for everybody.
JULIA: It does, really does. And I would make them all beautiful cloaks made out of my feathers. You'll see. You'll see.
AMANDA: Mmh! Delicious!
JULIA: Speaking of delicious, Amanda, what have you been watching, reading, listening to lately?
AMANDA: Julia, it is a great day for teenage Amanda today.
JULIA: Oh?
AMANDA: Because one of my very favorite shows and the source of I think the internet's favorite OT3, Leverage is back with more episodes. And I got to tell you Leverage: Redemption holds up. Good shit.
JULIA: Man. I've not yet watched Leverage. I know I need to. It's on Apple+, which I don't have. So I'm gonna have to like, find a way of watching it. Wink wink. But I know that it's one of your favorite shows. And I've been meaning to sit down and watch it.
AMANDA: It's delightful. I mean, it feels like a D&D campaign in the best way in that all of the characters are like your favorite NPC. But there's so many of them. And just I think that the actors really commit and you can see the writers kind of like bringing back some of our favorite like tropes and character elements. But updating it in a way that really feels like, oh, damn, you know, it is later and this is what these characters would be doing. My only complaint is that Aldis Hodge is famous now and is only in some of the episodes. But you know, his presence is still makin' a count. And I highly recommend a Leverage: Redemption. It is free, but it's downloaded in the IMDb TV app, which is bizarre. I don't know why it's not just on amazon prime. But whatever, find a way to watch it. Watch it. It's worth it.
JULIA: Yes, I- I'm gonna do it. Imma do it right now.
AMANDA: But you know, you can only watch TV when you're sitting down looking at something and that's pretty limiting. So if you want more stories to listen to when you're out and about or read the transcripts, those are good, too. In your day, you should subscribe to Join the Party. Julia and I are both on it. And this is a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast powered by the rules of D&D.
JULIA: It's a lot of fun. I super love it. I got to guest star on the first season. Now I'm a full-time player on the new season. I'm so happy. Our new season two if you're like interested in just jumping in right away is all about like superheroes and also like the moral conundrum of having powers. So highly recommend that. It's a lot of fun.
AMANDA: Yeah, the basic backstory is, you know, what if a small town in upstate New York discovered like clean, renewable energy in a new element. So Dr. Cassandra Morrow our favorite [3:28] and Doctor Morrow in 1985, discovered diaphragm. And now, the sleepy Adirondack town has expanded to the size of a major metropolitan city in only a few decades. So we got to do things like decide, hey, if there's actually good infrastructure, what, what does a major city look like? Hey, what if the US did have high-speed rail? And this city is connected to New York City? What would that be like? And it's just it's so much fun. And now the children of the people who are living in that small town have powers and have to decide what to do with them. And it is incredibly fun. There's a huge twist that happened recently that I just absolutely loved. We just released a like a one-shot kind of exploring a BuzzFeed-like company in our universe where Julia and I got to play like corporate Julia with the content creator, I was the assistant to the CEO and sort of like doing an investigation as our company was maybe taken over by a VC firm that is maybe run by people with powers so it's nothing but good, end to end. And we even teach you how to play D&D in a little 10 minute just kind of pre-episode before Campaign Two begin. So if you don't know how to play, totally okay. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the story.
JULIA: Yeah, it's a party and everyone is invited, search for joining the party in your podcast app or you can go to jointhepartypod.com
AMANDA: Well, without further ado everybody, we hope you enjoy Episode 241: Crane Wife.
JULIA: So in our last Myth Movie Night we talked about Beauty and the Beast right, Amanda?
AMANDA: Be our guest, Julia. Be our guest.
JULIA: Everyone was our guest. We... a lot of people came and listened to the episode, so appreciate it. And of course, the stories that either were inspired by inspired or were in a similar vein to the original fairy tale and story, we talked about those as well. So as I was doing research for that episode, I stumbled across this sort of like interesting parallel trope that got me thinking as it tends to do. And then one thing led to another and then I was stumbling down a rabbit hole and found myself in some Japanese folklore stories. Staring down the barrel at one of the most fascinating fairy tale and folklore tropes that I feel like we've touched upon a lot in the past few years. But we've never really dove deep into like, kind of starting with selkies, and bird husbands, and then all the way to now.
AMANDA: He's a husband and a bird…
AMANDA and JULIA: bird husband!
JULIA: So Amanda, today, we're going to be talking about the story of The Crane Wife. And then, when we get back from our refill, we're going to be talking more broadly about the concept of the animal spouse.
AMANDA: Oh, I'm fascinated. Yes!
JULIA: Yeah, I'm glad. I'm always excited when you're excited.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
JULIA: So the story of The Crane Wife is typically told as a children's story in Japan and is more formally known as Tsuru no Ongaeshi, which translates literally to 'The crane's return of a favor'. Technically, these are actually two different stories. So The Crane Wife is defined as a variant of The Crane’s Return of Favor. So let's actually start there. And then I'll explain how the crane becomes more of a wife and how they differ.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
JULIA: So a long time ago, because it's always a long time ago, in these stories, a young man, a farmer was working out in his field, you know, farming, toiling away with the soil and whatnot. I like to toil in the soil. That's a fun turner phrase.
AMANDA: I have to admit, Julia, I was just thinking to myself, 'Why are fairy tales always a long time ago, and/or in a land far away?' And then I realized, I think we have always sort of deified the past, I think we have always thought that the just kind of beyond living memory past was more magical, better, wilder with more possibility, fairer, you know, some amount of a time when, when stuff could happen, that could not happen in the humdrum reality of today. And that thought brings me some happiness because at least it's not just us now.
JULIA: I'm really picturing now that you've said that I was trying to come up with a time where maybe someone was like, 'No, it was worse before. And it's very rare. So now I'm picturing hunters and gatherers who have now settled down and become farmers being like, yeah, you know, agriculture is nice and all but I liked when I could just go into the forest and pick a berry you know?
AMANDA: Exactly, exactly. For lots of people, life did used to be worse.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: But I feel like in fairy tales and things like that, you know, we're thinking about people like me could have been a hero in the past. I guess the sort of Arthurian legend and things like that.
JULIA: The idealized past. So this farmer toiling in the soil, as he does, and as he's working, he sees this brilliant white crane. Like the most beautiful and pristine bird, he has ever seen just come swooping down. And at first, I think he thinks maybe like, 'Oh, this bird is gonna like attack me. It's just coming straight at me’. But instead, it crashes to his feet. And then that is when the farmer notices that the crane has an arrow piercing its wing and clearly it's been shot by a hunter.
AMANDA: Oh, no. See, my fairytale logic tells me, be nice to the bird.
JULIA: Well, the farmer feels awful about this whole thing and he kneels down next to the crane, he pulls the arrow from the wing and cleans the wing for the bird, and because he's so careful and caring the bird is able to take flight again rather quickly.
AMANDA: Oh, no.
JULIA: You know the magic of fairy tales, that bird not going to die of disease from the infected piercing wing, you know?
AMANDA: But now I'm thinking, oh no. Well if the crane has returned the favor I but this is not just a nice story about the bird being next to the farmer.
JULIA: So the farmer helps the bird take flight again kind of does that thing where you throw the bird back up into the air that it hopefully flies away. Though I've seen some very funny videos where they try to like release an owl or some sort of like carnivore bird, and it just looks at the camera and then just falls to the ground without flapping the wings at all.
AMANDA: Oh, no!
JULIA: You're just like, "Oh, Bud. Now, you're supposed to fly now."
AMANDA: Oh no.
JULIA: The farmer helps the bird take flight and then calls after the bird as it flies into the air warning the crane, "Be careful! Avoid hunters!" and then the bird circles around him three times lets out what the farmer takes to be a call of thank you and then flies away disappearing into the trees.
AMANDA: Not for long though in the story, I bet.
JULIA: No, that's it. That's the end. I don't know what you're talking about.
AMANDA: No!
JULIA: No. So the farm finishes his day of work in his field and then makes his way home. But when he arrives home, he finds that someone is already inside of his house. So a woman opens the door to his home for him. And she's absolutely gorgeous because of course, she is. But it's also like the first time he's ever seen this woman. It's not just like his hot neighbor came over to help about or something like that. And she's like, "Welcome home. I'm your wife!"
AMANDA: Crane wife, what are you doing in here?
JULIA: And so the farmers like, sorry, I'm a little confused. But I'm not like mad about this, but also like, Hey, I'm just a poor farmer. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to support both you and I and the woman just kind of points to the sack that is next to the door and says, It's okay, I have plenty of rice, we'll never go hungry and just kind of invites him in. He's just like, I'm gonna make dinner for us, and then wanders back into the house.
AMANDA: Pretty casual.
JULIA: Pretty cash. And again, the farmer very confused by this, but he comes in and he eats dinner. And this is the beginning of a very happy life that they built together. And it was odd because the farmer noticed that no matter how much they ate, his new wife's rice sack always remained full.
AMANDA: I mean, pretty clutch.
JULIA: Pretty clutch. I want that rice sack. I would eat rice all the time.
AMANDA: On Survivor and in life, choosing rice as your store of materials is usually a good idea.
JULIA: Absolutely. Absolutely. What are the other options for Survivor, by the way?
AMANDA: Sometimes they'll have like rice versus tools like fishing hooks, but fishing is notoriously, you know, pretty hit or miss. And it kind of depends if the person who's good at fishing is voted out of the tribe, then you're sort of like screwed.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Or if you're too good at fishing people see you as a threat and then they vote you out quickly. So...
JULIA: That seems so silly. Just let them feed you nice fish.
AMANDA: Yeah, or often it's like one meal from like, Outback Steakhouse versus a five-pound bag of rice that you know, you really got to take back the camp with you.
JULIA: Man. I do want to bloom an onion though. Okay, getting away from the point. So they're living this really wonderful life together. And then one day the wife asks, "Dear husband, will you build me a weaving room?" Which, I'm not sure what Japan is like at this time, but I do kind of picture it as the wife asking her husband to build her like a dark room for the photography that she's getting really into nowadays.
AMANDA: Totally are like, "Hey, you know, I've been using the kitchen sink for all my laundry. But like, how good would it be to have a slop sink in the laundry room?"
JULIA: Would be pretty nice.
AMANDA: Nice!
JULIA: There's already water running there.
AMANDA: There you go. You can share a wall with the guest bathroom.
JULIA: But the husband is like, "Yeah, babe, of course." And then he does it. And when it's completed, she's like, "Thank you so much. It's perfect. But also, you must promise me that you'll never look in this room. This is my space, and you can't interfere. This is like my man cave. But also I'm your wife. So I guess this is my lady cave, I guess?" I'm not sure.
AMANDA: She Shed is what they call an HGTV.
JULIA: Yeah. It's her She Shed show.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, I've been around folklore long enough to know that both he can't do it and he absolutely will.
JULIA: So the farmer's like, "Sure, babe. Whatever you want. It's all good. I love you and your bag of rice." So his wife would shut herself up in the room for hours and hours. And he would wait patiently for her to emerge like a little puppy waiting outside being like my wife is so cute. I can't wait for her to come out.
AMANDA: Awww!
JULIA: But in one instance, it takes seven days for her to come out again from the room. And when she emerges, she looks very thin. But she holds up for him this beautiful cloth. And it's more beautiful than anything he's ever seen in his entire life. And it's probably not something that she should have been able to weave over the course of just seven days.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And so she tells him, "Take this to the marketplace and sell it for a high price." And the farmer is like, "Yeah, I would buy this for a ton of money. I'll take it to the market." which is exactly what he does. He takes the cloth to the market and he sells it for a very hefty sum. And the farmer is like, "Damn, my wife is so talented to him. Damn, I love her. She's great." And then he returns home with the money. There's no like running away and spending the money on wrong things here which is very like Jack and the Beanstalk-esque.
AMANDA: He sounds like a great husband. And frankly, even if he did look in on her after two or three days, I'd be like, "Fair enough, man. It's been three days."
JULIA: Yeah. And so the wife is super glad to see that the cloth that she made sold for a lot of money. And so she returns to her weaving room again being like, it's time to make more money for the family because your farming is good. But you know, we're still poor. The problem is the farmer becomes curious as to like how his wife made so much money in weaving such a beautiful cloth, like how I would want to know the mastery behind that. I'd want to see the trade happen, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah, like where she got all the dye in them and the materials from.
JULIA: Exactly. Exactly. And so the farmer can't stand it and he sneaks a peek. Obviously. We knew he was gonna do it the whole time.
AMANDA: Yep.
JULIA: So when he pokes his head into the room, he discovers his wife's secret and that she was no longer in the room. And what he found instead was the crane that he had rescued who is diligently weaving her own feathers into thread and then to make the beautiful cloth that she had produced before.
AMANDA: That's what you get, Orpheus!
JULIA: But she pauses in her weaving when she notices that her husband has found out her secret. And so she looks at him and says, "Okay, you've caught me. I'm the crane that you saved, I wanted to repay you. So I became your wife, and I want to take care of you. But now that you've seen the true me, I can no longer stay with you." And so she hands him the cloth that she'd been working on, which is just as beautiful. And she tells him, "I'll leave this with you. So you can remember me always." And so he takes the cloth, and then all of a sudden, she like, turns back into the crane and they burst through the window and disappears into the sky, never to be seen by the farmer again.
AMANDA: I mean, all things considered, could be a lot worse.
JULIA: Could be worse, could for sure be worse. He did lose your wife, though, because she didn't trust her. So not great.
AMANDA: Not great. I don't love it. I also don't necessarily love the I guess we'll talk about takeaways at the end. But like, I don't know, sometimes you do want to see what's going on in the secret room, you know? There's, there's a balance there between trust and transparency.
JULIA: That is fair, there is a very interesting take that I am excited to talk to you about that we'll talk about at the end. That is a common trope in a lot of these animals spouse stories, and you can tell me whether you think it's folklorist bullshit, or if you think it's legit, so.
AMANDA: Excellent. You know exactly what I want Julia, I was so hungry, then you serve me up the perfect little morsel.
JULIA: Umm nom nom nom nom. It's just a little nice bowl of rice in the bag hasn't gone down at all.
AMANDA: Oh!
JULIA: So that's the story of The Crane’s Return of a Favor. Yes, in this version, the story of the crane is a wife. But this is how it differs in The Crane Wife story from the original story. So in this, the man marries this woman who is disguised as a human, but in this story, the wife is weaving her feathers into this like silk brocade instead of the, the cloth like it is in the first story. And however, when the man sells the brocade, the wife becomes sick. And the more that she weaves and the more that he sells the sicker and sicker she becomes.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So similarly, the farmer discovers his wife's identity and is devastated that she is like making herself sick in order to support them both and demands that she stop. Makes sense. But she tells him that she's only doing it for love, and to keep them both, you know, happy and healthy, and you know, in a good relationship. But the man tells her that love should exist without sacrifice. But the story kind of makes it obvious that like, that's not true. And the crane wife disagrees with him on that.
AMANDA: Mmh.
JULIA: And so she flies off, and she makes it clear that love does indeed need sacrifice in order to survive. And then at this point, in my research, I turned to Jake, who's on the couch next to me, and I'm just like, “Do you think that's true?” and Jake says "I don't think you're experiencing true love until you experienced sacrifice." I was like,
AMANDA: Wow!
JULIA: Damn son, okay, all right.
AMANDA: Pretty deep. Also, I mean, okay, so I think the surface reading, completely get it from what it's saying. But also, maybe like, women in heteropatriarchal societies are always sacrificing.
JULIA: Mmh.
AMANDA: And if you think that you could be, you know, in a, in a marriage without necessarily talking about those things, and like actively trying to undermine the roles that society puts on you without sacrifice then maybe that's not possible. So you have to look at it and confront it and talk about it and recognize sacrifice so that you can share that burden or try to do away with it. Perhaps.
JULIA: I think you are right on the money there. And I think you're really gonna enjoy the conversation that we have later with a certain folklorist.
AMANDA: Yes!
JULIA: Now, there are some really interesting variations on this story from Japan like, of course, Japan has not only The Crane Wife but a bunch of different other animal wives. Of course, we're going to talk about that but we're also going to talk about the various variations on the animal spouse in general. But I think first Amanda, we're gonna need to grab a refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
ADS
AMANDA: Julia, One of the things that I love talking about most in our free consulting sessions that we do with Multitude is about creative careers and how many skills you need being an entrepreneur, or even if you're trying to maybe, you know, especially if you're trying to apply to full-time jobs in creative industries, it can be like really challenging. It's almost a skillset in it of itself to know how to navigate the creative career when stuff is changing and technology changes and the ways you might want to make money might change. So I really appreciated that Skillshare has a class called "Finding Fulfillment: Using Pivots to Power Your Creative Career" by Emma Gannon. Who is an author, broadcaster, and podcast host. And I just love that she talked about things like finances, like sort of saying. "What are my skills?" and "What do I want to do?", "What will be interesting to me?". And that's the kind of stuff that you know, you can find on Skillshare. You can learn, express, and discover what you can make with their online classes. Whether that's on career stuff, illustration, design, photography, productivity, all kinds of stuff you're going to enjoy skillshare's short classes, where you can move your creative journey forward. So listen, explore your creativity at skillshare.com/spirits where our listeners can get a one-month free trial of premium membership. That's one month free at skillshare.com/spirits.
JULIA: Amanda, it's been so hot here in New York the past couple of weeks, and the idea of leaving my apartment where my air conditioning is to go outside where it's muggy and hot. Where I would have to drive and wait for my air conditioning in my car to really kick on and then go to a restaurant and then wait in the heat inside the restaurant. That just all sounds like so much, doesn't it? Instead, I can just call Doordash and get things delivered to my door and it's wonderful. Doordash connects you with restaurants that you love right now and right to your door. You're not leaving that AC anytime soon. And you can also get groceries essentials you need from Doordash as well. You can get snacks, you can get drinks, you can get other household items delivered in under an hour and ordering is super easy. You open up that Doordash app, you choose what you want from where you want it and your items are safely left outside your door with a contactless delivery drop-off setting. And with over 300,000 partners in the US in Puerto Rico, in Canada, and Australia. You can support all of your neighborhood go to's, or you can choose your favorite national chains. And for a limited time, our listeners get 25% off and zero delivery fees on their first order of $15 or more when you download the Doordash app and enter the code: creepycool. That's 25% off up to a $10 value and zero delivery fees on your first order when you download the Doordash app in that app store and enter the code: creepycool. Don't forget that's code creepycool. All one word for 25% off your first order with Doordash: subject to change terms apply!
AMANDA: Terms apply! Julia, we just renewed our lease on our apartment, which is very exciting.
JULIA: Whoo!
AMANDA: Yay! It's a good apartment. Nothing's wrong with it and in New York City, that means you stay there forever. And one of the things that we decided to do is have a little project where we're going to like little transform one of the spaces in our apartment. And right now there is a bed that used to be in Eric Silver’s place. But instead, we're going to replace it with a daybed. We have some more room we can fit in a desk. We can, you know, to kind of reconfigure a little bit this corner of our apartment. But, when we're changing the size of the mattress, we need new sheets for the new mattress. So any guests who come or if I'm having insomnia, my little insomnia corner can be comfy. And you know that there is one place and one place only that I turned to to get that buttery, soft, essential sheet set. It's Brooklinen.
JULIA: And Brooklinen was started to create beautiful high-quality home essentials that don't cost an arm and a leg that you can now put on your daybed, Amanda. They have something for everyone's comfort need. It's ideal for like a season refresh and they're always launching new products colors and patterns all the time. Like Amanda said, those are buttery soft, and breathable sheets. They have plush and absorbent towels. If you want to refresh your towel game. They got cozy robes, they got comfy loungewear that you want to put on and never take off. Trust me, I speak from experience.
AMANDA: I am wearing a Brooklinen lounge t-shirt right now. Is it supposed to be pajamas? I'm not sure. Do I wear it to work? Constantly.
JULIA: Lounge doesn't mean just in the bedroom, Amanda. You can lounge anywhere. Lounge wherever you want.
AMANDA: Whoa! Blowing my mind! Blowing my mind! And Julia, if people want to give yourself the comfort refresh you deserve and get it for less at Brooklinen, you got to do that. Go to brooklinen.com and use promo code “spirits” to get $20 off of the minimum purchase of $100.
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AMANDA: And now let's get back to the show.
JULIA: So Amanda, for this cocktail, I picked something quite literal, because it was originally made by West End Social and it is known as The Paper Crane.
AMANDA: Ooh!
JULIA: So it is Montenegro Aperol little bit of lemon juice and then Japanese whiskey. It's kind of like a like a very bitter Old-Fashioned.
AMANDA: It's very tasty and looks beautiful. The fancier the ice that is that you have
JULIA: Yeah, I feel like if you were drinking this at home, you need one of those like really nice engraved like whiskey glasses. Like that's the way to go here, I think.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And then fold a little origami crane and put it on top as your garnish.
AMANDA: I wonder if people ever done origami at a citrus peel got to work on that.
JULIA: I was just thinking that. Oh my gosh! Great advice!
AMANDA: I think at minimum, I could sort of weave a few strips. You know, into like a little shape.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is pretty easy to make at home if you have the ingredients and then you'll have a delicious cocktail that will make you grateful for your partner. Especially if that partner makes that cocktail for you. Now Amanda, like I mentioned before, there are some really interesting variations on the story of The Crane Wife specifically with various other animals rather than a crane. So these men just be marrying all sorts of animals who are happy to either give them stuff or return a favor from them being saved. One such story features a wild goose who is once again saved by the farmer. She weaves a beautiful cloth just like before. She bears him a child. And then one day she just disappears!
AMANDA: Goodbye.
JULIA: So the husband/farmer finds her in the local pond who and just kind of float in there. Just float down the middle of that pond.
AMANDA: As a person or as the goose?
JULIA: As a goose. I feel like. No, actually, no, I think it's lady, and then she turns into a goose later. Just imagine your wife just like rolled out out a nice pond in the middle of the, middle of the lake.
AMANDA: Because I mean, if he showed up to the pond and saw goose in the middle, he won't be like, "My wife!"
JULIA: You know, he wouldn't be, "My wife!". You're right. So he asked her why she left and she explains that she was just trying to repay the kindness that he had given her and that he should use the money for the cloth that she had weaved or wove or woven. Apparently, they're all correct according to some half-assed internet research that I did. Because I couldn't decide what sounded best. But anyway, she tells him to sell the cloth that she had made and use it to raise their child and then turns back into the goose and flies away.
AMANDA: Interesting the role of commerce in these two examples so far.
JULIA: It's very interesting. I feel like this is the like, merchant period where it's like, oh, we have to send you to market to sell the cow who's your best friend.
AMANDA: Okay, Meryl Streep in Into the Woods.
JULIA: Whoops. Oh.
AMANDA: That wasn't Meryl Streep's role, but I just, I really wanted to reference her and I think she'd be a good baker’s wife.
JULIA: I know!
AMANDA: Let's move on.
JULIA: It was good. It was really good. So because-
AMANDA: And Jack's mother. You know what I mean.
JULIA: I know what you mean. So because this is Japan, and Japan has a whole history of like trickster foxes and fox spirits. Of course, there's a fox wife version of the story as well. In this one, however, the beats are pretty much the same at the beginning. But rather than weave, the fox uses her tail to sweep the floors of the home while her husband is out in the fields.
AMANDA: Cute.
JULIA: It's very cute. And then one day he comes home and discovers her true form. And then he chases her away because fox is you know. Good sometimes bad sometimes, so don't blame him for chasing away.
AMANDA: Interesting.
JULIA: Yeah. This is kind of in the same vein of the kind of like, ungrateful husband as the clam wife. And if you're grossed out by bodily functions. Maybe skip ahead five minutes. Just listeners in general, just so you know. So in this one, a beautiful woman mysteriously shows up in the man's doorway and they become married because why not? Every day she makes him a delicious bean soup, but tells him-
AMANDA: Uhh.
JULIA: -that he can never watch her prepare it.
AMANDA: Uhh!
JULIA: So one day, he peeks into the kitchen to watch her and discovers that the secret to her soup is that she's been urinating clam juice into it. And disgusted, he chases her away as well. Shockingly, this is not the only woman ‘peeing in soup’ version of the story.
AMANDA: Fascinating.
JULIA: It goes very similar in the fish wife. But the difference here is that the fisherman, he releases the fish back into the water originally because he doesn't want to eat it because he's not hungry, and he doesn't want to be greedy.
AMANDA: Ohh.
JULIA: Which I think is kind of cute.
AMANDA: Good value.
JULIA: Fast forward to discovering her method of cooking. The husband kind of alludes at dinner that he knows how she's been making the soup. Just like doesn't come out right and be like: "I saw you- I saw you peein' at the soup." He's just kind of like, Oh, this tastes fishy. And like something else that I've hopefully never tasted before. And so, the wife realizes that he spied on her and so she must return home and that the fishermen should visit her at the pond the next day. And so, of course, he shows up and she gives him the reveal that she was the fish that he saved the whole time. And now, she's returned the favor, I guess? And so, she disappears into the water and leaves him a chest full of silver and gold so that he will be taken care of for the rest of his life. And I guess so that he can buy as much non-pee soup as he wants.
AMANDA: This is so interesting. I mean, there's obviously right like the, the sort of misogyny of like talking about, you know about the fat people, genitals, etc.
JULIA: But like, is it grosser than eating a soup of boiled dead fish bodies?
AMANDA: I don't think so.
JULIA: No, I mean, like when you eat clams, that's part of that. Like, you can't like scoop out the, for lack of a better word, but shitty and pee parts.
AMANDA: No, I, it's so interesting, man. I'm gonna have to dive into j store and read about some scholars’ takes on these myths. Fascinating.
JULIA: Sounds good. Sounds good.
AMANDA: I do love the three lines so far as well of "Hey, sorry, Your love left. Here's some money, you'll be fine."
JULIA: I mean, I guess you know, I guess.
AMANDA: I guess- I guess material safety is an act of love in that way. But it's so fascinating.
JULIA: So another version, which I think we talked about a variation of way back in Episode 39, which is Toyotama-hime. If you'll remember that story. Toyotama was the beautiful daughter of a sea god and that when she gave birth, she asked her husband to build her a little hut
JULIA: In order to deliver her baby in. And she told him. Please don't look while I give birth. Which I think is fair, you know. So in that story, he discovers that his wife has taken the form of either a dragon or a crocodile, depending on the version of the story in order to give birth. And she becomes ashamed and angry with her husband that he broke his promise and flees. So in a similar story, the snake wife. A beautiful woman appears at the door of a man who recently lost his wife asking if she can spend the night. Of course, she's very beautiful and they get married and then she gets pregnant because that's how it would be stories go. And much like Toyotama-hime, she has a hut built and tells her husband not to look in on her while she has the baby. And of course, he does because why not. And discovers that his wife is a snake as the title of the story would imply.
AMANDA: Oh yeah.
JULIA: Because he has seen her true form, she has to leave because that's always how it goes. But not before she gives their child her two eyeballs as nourishment because obviously she can't give him milk and she will not be there to feed the baby.
AMANDA: Oh sure.
JULIA: Yeah. In a kind of nice ending, in a kind of nicer twist, the son, when he becomes old enough, he goes out and he finds his now blind mother. And he cares for her for the rest of her days.
AMANDA: Aww.
JULIA: Which I think is very sweet.
AMANDA: That's something. yeah.
JULIA: That's a, like a non-terrible version that does not be like "Oh, here you, money? Money's good, right?".
AMANDA: Sorry, no, no partner but money instead.
JULIA: But what if money? So now as you can see, there are quite a few variations on this one story. But the concept of the animal spouse is so prevalent even outside of the story of the crane wife and the variations thereof. So in the beauty of the beast episode, we talked about pig husbands and bear husbands. We talked about the dragon wife and Toyotama-hime. We talked about the bird husbands and the story of crocheted the deathless. And even more than that, like think of all the Greek stories that feature someone like Zeus transforming into an animal in order to seduce or rape people that he's pursuing. He turns into swans and cows, etc, all to make sure that Hera doesn't know about his actions. Even though she almost always finds out.
AMANDA: Classic Zeus.
JULIA: Classic Zeus. And similarly, we can make comparisons to that of selkies though they're usually not returning a favor. But they are like shifting from animal form into a human one when they marry their spouse. And from selkies, it's not too far of a jump to Swan maidens, which we haven't explored as much on the show, so I'm just going to give you and the listeners a basic rundown. Similar to selkies they shift from human to Swan form and vice versa, though typically this is done with like a cloak or a garment made out of Swan feathers rather than Swan skin like the selkies though the swan skin is not unheard of. It's not out of the question. Though, I like- I like a cloak made of Swan feathers a little bit more than like, there's just there's a leathery skin here in this chest. Now, where did this come from? So in these types of stories, again, much like with selkies, they are typically a woman whose feathered garment is snatched away. Which prevents them from flying or swimming away. And then she is compelled to become the wife of the person who snatched away their cloak or skin. Swan maidens or a Swan maiden equivalence can actually be found all over the world from Germany to Mongolia and China, Russia, Ireland, India. In fact, some folklorists believe that the oldest version of the swan maiden tale comes from the Sanskrit story of the romance between Urvashi and Pururavas which I don't know a ton about. But it does seem to be the oldest version of a like Swan transformation love story. So, there you go,
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: And Swan maidens again, fall under this category of the Arn Thompson Uther index, which you might remember this is an index used by some folklorist to categorize fairy tales and folk stories, and they fall under the ATU 402, which is animal bride. And there are so many of these, like so many that I would just love to really dig into. But like literally, it seems like as though every group of people with some sort of storytelling, have some sort of story with a shapeshifting spouse who is eventually found out.
AMANDA: When you say that it like surprises me at first, but then it really is a thing that kind of spans so many cultures and continents.
JULIA: Yeah. So for example, in Nigeria, they have stories of Buffalo maidens who are very similar to Swan maidens, but they're buffalo. There is a variety of Pacific Islander tales where a man marries a woman who is really a fish, but then the man hides her fishtail from her only for it to be found when she gives birth to their daughter. There is a Inuits story of the goose bride, where her husband finds out her true identity and then she leaves with their child. One of my favorite variations is from Indonesia, where a woman gives birth to seven crabs. I'm not sure why, she just does. That she then tosses back into the water after they're born. And then these seven crabs grow up, disguise themselves in human form, and then manage to seduce seven different princesses and marry them all.
AMANDA: Incredible! What a takeover.
JULIA: I love that one. It's just like, you know what, you threw us away and now we got hot princess wives. All right now we're royalty.
AMANDA: I mean maybe, she was just trying to save them, like, liberate them and give them a good life versus I don't know being potentially someone's meal. It seemed to work out for them.
JULIA: It's possible. I feel like not gonna lie. If I gave birth to seven crabs. I probably wouldn't be like, Well, I'm not going to eat you. But I also don't know if I'm going to keep you. You know?
AMANDA: I don't know. Maybe I want to believe that it was a real kind of “Be free” type moment.
JULIA: Yes. I think that's part of it. Anyway, but what is it Amanda about these stories that makes them so common even around the world? Well, for one, most of these stories are used to kind of relate fears and concerns that society has in that moment. So like most of these stories, for instance, deal with stuff like self-sacrifice, sexuality, societal expectations, and what defines like, "other" and like we talked about in Beauty and the Beast, that story was kind of written as a reaction to arranged marriages as they began to fall out of favor during that period. But like no one should feel like they're- they're facing a beast or an animal on their wedding night like that's scary. That's- that's wrong.
AMANDA: And a real kind of, I think, worry about like policing. Yeah, bodies, sexuality, privacy, particularly, I think depending on like, the sort of culture around marriage in wherever the myth is from, is there a kind of implication of subservience or you know, one- one person's assets becoming communal or is it more mutual. There is a real for most of history, kind of some real surprises in store when you leave the only home you've ever known to make a new one. It's also like the most domestic thing versus the most non-human you know, wild thing of like the the most you know, domestic thing in the world. A wife versus the most sort of like surprising and unexpected and like thing you can't control which is like, oh a wild animals in my home.
JULIA: Yeah, you're hitting so many nails on the head. I've just got to continue because I'm going to highly recommend anyone listening to this or you Amanda. It's on j store. But in search of the swan Maiden, a narrative on folklore and gender by Barbara Fass Leavy. So, she has a chapter in that book called "The animal groom". Which talks about the various examples of the animal groom rather than the animal bride or the animal wife.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But she also talks about how societal customs are often very clearly reflected in these kinds of stories. So, for example, Kiko Seki, who was a Japanese folklorist recounts a Japanese serpent bridegroom story where: "A mysterious lovers nightly visits to a woman and in catastrophe when she attaches a thread to his clothing and follows it to his daytime abode, often to find a snake dead of the needle that she unwittingly had thrust into his skin." According to Seki, a young Japanese man could at one time steal at night into a girl's room without her parents being aware of his presence. But at some point, the family's knowledge or the girl's pregnancy would force a marriage to take place.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: So Seki goes on, to make the point that this custom persisted until at least the end of the 1920s and that the serpent bridegroom stealing into his lover's room at night was kind of a reflection of this like, unspoken, cultural thing, you know?
AMANDA: Totally. Yeah, it's not just kind of the fact of it. But it's the like horror of an unintentional reveal.
JULIA: Yes. Exactly. Again, this is kind of like if people knew what I married or who I was, then society would judge me.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Similarly, many of these tales include stories in which as you point out, Amanda. The bride is sent away from her home, often to a foreign land or to somewhere where she's never been before to live with her spouse. Whether the spouse is beastly like in Beauty and the Beast or the bride is of supernatural origin, like our selkies or our Swan maidens. The point remains the same. She is going somewhere new where she hasn't been before. And this was a common practice at some times, which was called exogamous marriages. So basically like marriages where you leave your family where you are exiled-
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: -so to speak. But yeah, she has to leave her family and travel to the land and home of her husband. Leavy also takes a moment to kind of point out quite correctly that often when there is some sort of like rebellion of by the bride in these stories, like whether it is beauty staying longer than she said she would from the beast, or in this case, like the goose wife in the Inuit story taking their daughter away. You know, from the husband when she gets her skin back. It always kind of depends on what the rebellion will be depending on the culture, but there always is that kind of small element of rebellion. And she also mentions the folklorist Joseph Warren Beach, who points out that most of these stories feature a lover who transforms from human form to animal form and back, rather than staying in a beastly form at all times, which he's like, it's most likely to avoid uncomfortable beastiality conversations when talking about these stories. Which I don't blame you that is a taboo in almost all cultures
AMANDA: Interesting too where I was kind of reading it as like those flashes of privacy or a time where you can really be yourself. And then almost all the rest of the time, you have to kind of meet the other person on their terms and kind of like meet society in a way that's palatable to society. And not just to you.
JULIA: That is a great point. And I like that better than what Joseph Warren Beach says. So I'm gonna go with that one.
AMANDA: Listen, I don't know, maybe that as well. But thinking particularly too. If you wanted to do a, you know, a trans reading of this, or there are lots of kind of stories with like, racial anxiety about, you know, people who have mixed heritage who pass for the, you know, like, willingly or not, or because they have to. And there's so many examples of like that kind of like panic or reveal that, you know, becomes very dangerous for that person. So a disguise is really necessary.
JULIA: Yeah, absolutely. That is another part that Leavy did talk about in her book, but I didn't take as many notes on that section. But you're right on the money yet again.
AMANDA: I mean, this is like such a huge topic. I'm sure there have been so many doctoral theses on myths in individual cultures, much less kind of like the archetype.
JULIA: Yeah. What I liked best about Leavy's animal groom conversation is that she talks about how this trope has a lot to do with power imbalance in these stories. So that by imposing some rule or some taboo, like we see with the crane wife, when she tells her husband not to watch her weave. It's intended to address that power imbalance in the relationship. So this is the only thing that this wife can do in order to kind of feel as though she is on equal footing with her husband.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And when that imposed rule or taboo is broken, that's when the union dissolves. And because this explains so much, and it harkens back to one of the first conversations that we had on the show regarding Eros and Psyche, which is the idea that love cannot exist where there is no trust.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: So I really am glad that you started talking about like, the patriarchal imbalance of a lot of the relationships at the time that these stories were being written. Because I think that is like Leavy's whole point is that like, the reason that these stories kind of hit the same marks and hit the same tropes, and they have the same beats is because these women have to feel as though they have some sort of power in the relationship.
AMANDA: You know, there's also a kind of easier, sort of stereotypical reading of like, women are hiding something. Or it's too good to be true. Or, you know, you have to kind of interrogate like, what is the moral of this supposed to be. You know, like, what is society or the kind of like, reason that these stories are preserved and passed down? Like, what are they trying to do? But to me, the way more interesting part is to think about these, I don't know, these characters as characters and not just as archetypes. And like, both of them are really interesting for different reasons. I love that we can approach myths from various perspectives. But I'm also thinking too about, yeah, like the- the suspense and danger and maybe thrill. In any case, like the the dramatic tension that makes for a good story of trying to like exist in that kind of in a between or in that role. And, you know, having the one space where you can just be you or you can kind of like use all of your talents. In a way that society doesn't accept too. Because, you know, it is economically generative, like the crane wife is, you know, making money and supporting the household in a way that just her husband can't on his own. But because of you know, whether it's society's taboos or her husband's expectations, or her own sense of privacy, or these more nebulous, kind of like, "Well, you see me now I must go." sort of rules, like whose role is that? Why is that happening? You know, it's I don't know, there's just there's so much here.
JULIA: Yeah, I think it's really interesting because I looked up the story of the crane wife. And what goes through my head is just like. Y'all could have had a very happy life together if you just respected this one boundary that she set herself in this relationship. You know what I mean? Like, I would never say like, the farmer is a bad guy, because he broke this one rule and didn't understand the consequences of it. But if he had respected his wife's boundaries more than one time. Because in this original story, it's the second time that she starts weaving that he all of a sudden is like, What you doin' in there? Can I see? But it's, it's just it's a little frustrating. It's very much the, you said it before, is very much the like Orpheus turning around before they both leave the underworld in, in Greek mythology. Where it's like, if you had just waited one more second we would have been fine.
AMANDA: I mean, that's one of like, the biggest tropes in storytelling, right? It's like whether it is better to know or not to know.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And you know, would their life have been happier/better not knowing the truth. But I think that's a hard question to ask. Because you don't know what you don't know. And so if he had never looked in on her, and for 60 years, or whatever, it was just like, yup, my wife just goes in the room sometimes. And like, I don't know, you know, is that kind of ignorance bliss? And it's hard to say, because once you interrogate it, you know, you can never, never know how it would have been if you hadn't.
JULIA: Well, that begs the question. Would the crane wife have told him if he had asked, "Hey, why can't I see you?". And if, I don't imagine she would. I don't imagine she would have been like, "Well, I'm technically a crane. And I'm gonna sew all of my feathers into cloth for you so that we can make some money." And he just would have been fine and cool with that. So I understand the like protective nature that she is trying to get across. Because like, her identity, she doesn't know how he's going to react. And there are several variations of the crane wife story, where the husband chases the wife away, even though she hasn't done anything necessarily bad. Like, the fox wife didn't do anything wrong. She was just sweeping the floor with her tail. And he chased her away because she was a fox. So, it does kind of beg the question like, by not revealing this information, was she doing so in order to protect herself?
AMANDA: Yeah. And I don't know, like in a relationship, in a common relationship context-
JULIA: Does this kind of situation? I don't think it's common.
AMANDA: I think you don't have to completely understand every detail of what the person is going through in order to like, empathize with and support them through it. I can think of a context where, where the, you know, the husbands can say like, hey, like, How do you feel after this? Are you proud of what you did? You know, like, what does this do for you? What do you think about? Like, well, How do you feel in this time away?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: And you can, you know, get to know each other better, kind of deepen your intimacy in that way without knowing every single fact about it. Or maybe she just wanted one thing to be hers. And he can say, "Listen, I'm curious but I respect you and you know, live your life." But there's like a real line between kind of like nosiness curiosity you know, intimacy and just like trying to share yourself and you don't always have to share the facts of it in order to have the other person like know you better and kind of know, just know you and know your kind of emotional landscape and like your experience.
JULIA: Yeah, I actually really like that because it reminds me why I like the crane wife story slightly better than the crane returns a favor. And it's that the only reason he kind of starts becoming curious and is out of concern, because she's starting to become thin and sickly and because she's doing all of this weaving he kind of barges in but it's out of concern about what is wrong with her what is happening. What is she sacrificing in order to make their lives better?
AMANDA: As we say in my house Julia, a real "Gift of the Magi" situation.
JULIA: So a real gift of the Magi situation.
AMANDA: You are giving up something that the other person doesn't want you to give up in order to give them what you think they need, but they really don't need. I think at the end of the day, like most folklore, the moral of the story is like one, don't eat the fairy apple but two, you know, communicate.
JULIA: Precisely. So whether your lover or spouse is a human or a crane. Remember, love requires trust and equity in the relationship. That's all.
AMANDA: Yeah. Communication. Giving what you can and taking what you nee., Private space, but also the willingness and trust that they'll love you no matter who you are.
JULIA: Or what you are.
AMANDA: Or what you are. Or how many feathers you have.
JULIA: I have so many feathers, Amanda. Don't tell anyone. I have so many feathers.
AMANDA: Do you think all the goose spouses felt weird about sleeping on goose down pillows?
JULIA: They probably didn't.
AMANDA: They probably didn't.
JULIA: Actually, now that I'm thinking about it they're like "Ah yes, my fallen comrades. I'm so sorry."
AMANDA: Or if the feathers are that valuable, they made it into silk and they slept on hay.
JULIA: There you go. There's something. And while you remember to love and appreciate your bird spouse and other animal spouse. Remember, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
Transcriptionist: Krizia Casil, John Matthew Sarong
Editor: Krizia Casil